Had a Good Time: Stories from American Postcards [Hardcover]

Robert Olen Butler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 30, 2004

In Robert Olen Butler's dazzling new book of stories, Had a Good Time, he explores America by finding artistic inspiration in an unlikely and fascinating place-the backs of postcards from a bygone era. For many years Butler has collected picture postcards from the early twentieth century-not so much for the pictures on the front but for the messages written on the backs, little bits of the captured souls of people long since passed away. Only Butler could use these brief messages of real people from another age to create fully imagined stories that speak to the universal human condition. From the hilarious "The Ironworkers' Hayride," where a young man named Milton dates a girl with a wooden leg, to the deeply moving "Carl and I," where a young wife writes a postcard in reply to a card from her husband who is dying of tuberculosis, to the eerily familiar "The One in White," where a newspaper reporter covers an incident of American military adventurism in a foreign land, these fifteen stories convey a complex and true vision of America and Americans that resonates profoundly into our own time.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

After years of collecting early 20th-century postcards, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Butler (A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain) takes 15 choice missives as inspiration for his latest volume of short stories—an ambitious writing exercise that even in his assured hands yields mixed results. The stories range in tone and substance, from the humor of "The Ironworkers' Hayride," in which a man lusts for a sassy suffragette despite her wooden leg ("her mouth is a sweet painted butterfly"), to the melancholy of "Carl and I," about a woman who pines for her consumptive husband ("I breathe myself into my husband's life"). A few stories amount to little more than vignettes or reveries: in "No Chord of Music," a woman takes her husband's car for an empowering ride, and in "Sunday," an immigrant at Coney Island feels blessed to be in America. Other postcards trigger more fully realized stories. "Hurshel said he had the bible up by heart and was fixing to go preaching," reads the card Butler takes as his cue for "Up by Heart," a funny tale that addresses questions of faith and fundamentalism. "My dear gallie... am hugging my saddle horse. Best thing I have found in S.D. to hug," wrote a woman named Abba, inspiring Butler's poignant "Christmas 1910," which evokes the loneliness of a young woman homesteading on the Great Plains. Though many stories are as slight as the postcards themselves, the collection as a whole adds up to a thoughtful commentary on America at the dawn of a new century: while some Americans were buoyed by their confidence in technology and progress, others, at the mercy of a disease-ridden, hardscrabble existence, could trust only in their faith in God.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine

This varied collection and the unusual adventures of Americans facing the dawn of a new century won a few critics over. A man falls in love with a girl with a wooden leg; a woman pines away for her dying husband. Still another jumps off a hotel balcony. Most reviewers, however, expected more from Butler. The blame might be better placed on the postcards themselves. Only a few were suited for fully realized characters and conflicts. Others, unfortunately, only serve as a jumping off point for clichés and wearying talk of the Good Old Days—which, considering most of these old postcards led to death, must not have been so good, after all.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press; 1St Edition edition (June 30, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802117775
• ISBN-13: 978-0802117779
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,632,713 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Taking Calculated Risks on Behalf of Literature, August 27, 2004

By 

Bestbeast "Mr.666" (Key Biscayne) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Had a Good Time: Stories from American Postcards (Hardcover)

Mr. Butler continues to experiment with new ways of looking at the world, at the people who enhabit his world. He doesn't write simply to give us the same old same old. He is taking chances on behalf of his craft. AND he's still very much in control of his powers. HAD A GOOD TIME, though not a perfect book, is another attempt by the author to keep going, to keep surprising himself with possibilities, to give his readers something different. For that and much more he gets my respect. I recommend people read and enjoy this new book regardless of what I or anyone else in these little snippets say. In my book, Mr. Butler is a brave writer for continuing to write from where it counts, where it is still vibrant and exciting. Writing from his intellect and heart. It's a winning combination.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Masterful Creative Technique, February 19, 2005

By 

Jon Linden (Warren, N.J. United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Had a Good Time: Stories from American Postcards (Hardcover)

In Butler's new book, he has created a new type of epistolary technique. He uses a news story and a postcard to introduce each of his stories. The concept of the postcard is further refined by showing the significant difference between life as it is, and life as depicted on the postcard.

First and foremost, the book is about America. Many of the characters are immigrants, coming to America for the first time. Many are not. But all meet the trials and tribulations of American life. And they write a postcard to someone they know and/or love. Yet that postcard is not in the least an accurate depiction of their life at that point in time.

Butler deals with the physical, the spiritual and the concepts of life and death in a visceral manner. Some of his stories are about war. Others are about immigration. Still others are about the contrast between life and death. These are the same questions that haunt all of our minds. And through his stories, Butler gives us a perspective on all these things, in fact, a very American perspective.

Butler is at his very best in the short story genre. He won his Pulitzer Prize for a terrific book of short stories. This one is no exception. It is highly recommended for all lovers of experimental modern literature, and those who love the short story genre, as these are some of his best.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Postcards from a muse., September 18, 2004

By 

Peppy Jane (Beaufort, SC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Had a Good Time: Stories from American Postcards (Hardcover)

Mr. Butler has been visited by a divine muse. How else can one explain his inspired idea of writing the stories behind the antique postcards he collects? "Carl and I" and "The Ironworkers Hayride" are quite possibly two of the finest short stories ever written. The author is a master of this format and his book is a must-read for aspiring writers and postcard collectors.